150 Milliamps
by Temporal Break
Summary: Danielle has now officially moved into Vaga and trains under a master martial artist. But when Danielle undergoes strange phenomena and Technus comes to town seeking a powerful weapon, can Vaga's newest hero keep her powers in check and stop the the technological threat?
1. Chapter 1: A Lesson in Strength

**Hello, peoples of the internet. Temporal Break here with a new logo! Oh, and some announcements.**

**Firstly, I have started a new story called Kid Icarus: Daybreak! This story details the adventures of the multiplayer fighters in Free-For-All and their fight against a robotic swarm. More details on the story can be found in the end chapter author notes.**

**Secondly, this story takes place one week after the events of _The Lost and The Found_. This would allow Danielle ample time to recover and make her choice for a pro. Also, all events in this story will refer to events in the previous stories or the Phantom canon in general.**

**Thanks for reading, and enjoy _150 Milliamps!__  
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Chapter 1: A Lesson in Strength

Saturdays in the United States often brought a sense of peace and tranquility after a long and difficult week of therapist inducing memories. Par for the course at most high schools. On weekends, teenagers would often hang out at their local fast food venues, enjoy a ride or two at a local amusement park, or just chill with some video games at a friend's house.

Most teenagers would not have their butts kicked in a Japanese dojo.

In front or a small group of karate students.

In the middle of the hottest desert in the United States.

Which was exactly was Danielle was doing.

Within the dojo, Danielle panted with her hands on her knees. She wiped rivulets of sweat off her brow and looked up at her opponent: a middle aged man, slightly balding, with his arms folded across his chest and wearing a karategi wrapped in a black belt; this was the master of the dojo, Kirito. Danielle herself was wearing a similar robe, but with a white belt tied around her waist. As she tried to recover, she heard the man speak in a stern voice.

"You are not beaten yet. Face me again."

Despite her exhausted state, she got up and faced her opponent, holding her fists at face level and bending her legs. In turn, Kirito uncrossed his arms but remained upright, with one foot pointed at Danielle and the other turned 90 degrees away. Both stared each other eye to eye as they prepared for another match.

Danielle stuck first with a forward jab aimed at Kirito's stomach; the punch was blocked with his left forearm and countered by a roundhouse kick. She quickly ducked and prepared to strike his open back, only to be struck in the face by a backward kick. She reeled back in shock and pain, then shook it off and approached him again, taking up her previous defensive position, albeit a bit more shakily.

The halfa knew that while she had trained with Team Phantom for half a year, she couldn't possibly beat a black belt master without some help; that is, help generated in the form of invisible ecto energy.

Suddenly, Kirito struck out with the blade of his foot. She quickly generated a small transparent ghost shield above her forearm and blocked the strike; when the kick collided, the older fighter was caught off guard and lost his defensive form. Danielle took advantage of the opening and quickly landed a few small ecto charged jabs on the fighter before he regained his form. Suddenly, he ducked under the barrage and swiftly punched the halfa in the stomach, forcing the wind out of her lungs.

Danielle momentarily doubled over before another punch to the gut left her on the ground, gasping for air. The defeated halfa propped herself onto one elbow and stared at Kirito, who had turned to address his apprentices, using Danielle as an example.

"You see, students, those who choose the way of power, and power alone, are defeated before they can fight. Take time to observe your opponent, think how he thinks, and then strike. But above all, never rely on power or stratagem alone; train both body and mind in balance, and you will succeed."

Both master and students bowed in respect, and then all the students exited the dojo. All, that is, expect for one: Danielle, who sat on the floor next to the master, cradling her head in her hands and seething in anger. Even with her ghost powers, she was still bested by her master. Surely she, a half-human half-ghost hybrid could take down a human, even if he was a black belt master.

"Excuse me, Danielle, but why are you still here? Would you like to train more?"

The lone student looker up at her former opponent and sullenly mumbled, "Why? So you can humiliate me again?"

Sensing anger from his raven-haired student, the master sat down next to Danielle and attempted to console her.

"I understand that you are upset over your performance, but remember that skill and practice come through time. Unless, of course, that isn't the problem," he said softly. Danielle looked up at him with a hateful glare, but that hate soon turned to regret as she leaned forward, crossing her arms over her legs.

"I know I shouldn't be mad at you, but I'm so used to being strong enough to overpower my problems. I feel like if I can just fight fast enough and quick enough, I won't have to worry about losing. But you? I can't seem to fight you fast enough to win."

At this, the old man chuckled and replied, "I think I see the issue here. You find power in strength, and see it as the ultimate solution. I imagine that you would think strategically if push came to shove, but you often power through your problems before all else. The trouble is that there is no thought behind the action.

"Your strength is like a horse without a bridle; full of potential, full of energy, but not yet harnessed. This strength must be reined in and refined with discipline and reflection," The master slowly got up and walked toward the door, cautioning Danielle, "When you come back tomorrow, we will train again, but then, you will put thought before action when we spar."

Before he left, Kirito commented, "Do not think that your strength is useless; as a matter of fact, it nearly overpowered me in our last match."

"Huh, really?" Danielle questioned, lifting herself up from the mat.

"Yes, when you struck me, I felt a numbness spread through my chest," the master pondered, gripping his pectorals in minor discomfort. "It was almost like a small jolt of electricity had spread through my body. You must have found a powerful pressure point that even I have not yet identified."

Danielle gave a small start as she heard this information; after all, while her strikes were stronger when charged with spectral energy, she had only charged them with a small amount of power. Her energy couldn't cause numbness in any form; at least, as far as she knew.

Unless…

Nah, it was probably just a weird pressure point.

Danielle stepped out of the dojo and onto the main street of Vaga. A cold breeze reminded her that evening was coming and a blisteringly cold night would soon follow. She quickly ran down the avenue despite her aches and pains and ducked left into a street next to a biology lab. She walked past a few more houses before turning into a red brick building adorned with two windows, whose sills were adorned with cacti and desert flowers.

In other words, the Mander house.

Danielle opened the door to the Mander's dwelling, yelling, "Hey, Jaike, Mrs. Mander, I'm home! Where are you guys?" She took off her red sneakers, stepped over the threshold and immediately walked onto something hard and metallic. Wincing in discomfort, she lifted up her foot and found that she had stepped on a small green circuit board.

"What in the…?"

"Hello, Danielle."

Danielle flicked the circuit board off of her foot and looked up to see a woman in her thirties sitting on the stairs to her left: Jaike's mom. She was somewhat short, about 5 feet 8 inches, and had dark blond hair which was tied back into a braid. She wore a grey short sleeved athletic shirt with a black stripe down the side, black track pants and grey ankle socks.

"It's good to see you back. How was your first day with Master Kirito?" the woman asked with a soft spoken voice. Her tone almost made Danielle forget that this was the mother of the oddball inventor otherwise known as Jaike

"Ah, it went fine, thanks." Danielle responded, walking toward the stairs. "Hey, could you tell me where Jaike's hiding? I want to make sure she isn't attempting nuclear fission."

The woman chuckled and replied, "Last I saw, I think she was upstairs welding something for a project that Mr. Polasid gave her. Words of advice, though; knock before entering her bedroom. If I'm not mistaken, you would probably want to keep your hair."

"Uh, thanks," Danielle said nervously, walking past the woman on the steps. At the top of the stairs, a bright glow caught Danielle's eye. She turned to her right, curious as to what could be causing the glow, and saw the door to Jaike's room outlined in a sharp yellow light. She cautiously approached the door, turned the knob…and the door stayed closed, locked from the inside.

"Heh, nice try, Jaike," she acknowledged as a transparent blue hue spread across her body, "but you can't keep a ghost from going where it wants to go." She stepped through the door, now fully intangible, and saw the silhouette of Jaike outlined by the glow of a welding torch. She was leaning over her junk table and appeared to be wearing heavy goggles and a thick welding jacket.

Danielle tapped Jaike's back; Jaike responded by whirling around with the lit blowtorch, nearly roasting the halfa's hair.

"AAH, WHO, WHA? Oh, hey Dani. I thought I locked the door; how'dja get in?" Jakie asked, taking off her goggles and laying them on the table. Danielle, visibly shocked, shakily spoke up as the adrenaline began to wear off.

"Okay, first of all, you know that I can go intangible. And secondly, why on earth are you using a blowtorch in your bedroom? Isn't there a workshop somewhere in Vaga?" Danielle asked curtly as Jaike hung her jacket on the coatrack to the left of the bed.

After hanging up her protective gear, the young inventor turned back to the table, responding, "Well, I wasn't working with metal; I was making…"

Suddenly, Jaike whirled around, holding a piece of burnt bread aloft in her hand.

"TOAST!"

Danielle stared at Jaike for a long time, wondering why Jaike would use welding equipment as an oven before quipping, "You do realize that you have a toaster in your kitchen, right?"

"Sure," Jaike said, shrugging her shoulders, "But where's the fun in that?"

"It would certainly be more practical…" Danielle commented, leaning on the junk table and picking up a small piece of copper.

The muffled thump of a heavy object directed Danielle's attention to the bed in the middle of the room, where Jaike had flopped onto the sheets of the mattress. A nearby clock revealed that the time was only eight o' clock at night; it wasn't nearly late enough for Jaike to go to sleep. She was about to ask why the hyperactive inventor had taken a nap, when Danielle heard the crunch of burnt toast coming from the bed

"You know, I just said that you had a kitchen downstairs," the black-haired girl said, flipping the small sheet of copper over in her fingers. Jaike turned to face Danielle, crumbs falling from her mouth.

"Bu I'h hungwy naw," the blond mumbled, small particles of bread falling from her mouth. "Bushides, awen't yah shupposhed ta be headin' awt shoon?"

Danielle's face scrunched up in confusion as she listened to Jaike's garbled speech.

"What are you-oh, right, the portal stake out. I'm gonna rest up here for a few minutes; I'm still sore from fighting the karate master at the dojo. After that, I'll start my search around the town"

"I take it that Kirito really musta laid into you if _you_ of all people need a break," Jaike said thoughtfully, wiping crumbs off her mouth. "Ya know, you might be the Determinator incarnate, but Kirito is called the pro fighter here for a reason. How was your first day with him, anyway?"

"Painful, both physically and emotionally," Danielle moaned, sitting down on the bedside next to the hungry eccentric. "I chose Kirito as my teacher because I wanted to train for any more ghost attacks. I wasn't expecting to be used as an example for the other students." She began to feel bitter as she remembered her misadventures in the dojo.

"I thought for sure that I could beat him; I'm part ghost, for crying out loud. Why can't I beat a human when I've both taken down my hafla creator _and_ saved the Earth from a spectral asteroid?" Danielle hissed. Suddenly, she realized that the crunching of toast had suddenly stopped. Turning to face Jaike, she saw the blonde with her mouth hanging slack jawed, half-chewed food falling from her lips.

"I-I'm sorry, did you say 'Spectral Asteroid'? As in, THE Disastroid? The one that would have wiped out all humanity if the ghosts didn't- you were a part of the group of ghosts that saved Earth?!" Jaike exclaimed, throwing aside her burnt toast and rushing to Danielle's side.

Danielle slowly scooted away from the excitable teen, trying to come up with an excuse to explain away her outburst; unfortunately, no good excuse came to mind, and Jaike's pleading green eyes made it difficult to lie to her.

Eventually, Danielle gave a heavy sigh and muttered, "Yes, I may have helped to save the Earth with the help of some ghosts. There, are you happy?"

"That's SO COOL!" Jaike squealed, a happy grin adorning her face. "You saved the Earth from certain doom by setting aside your differences for the greater good! I thought that only worked in movies and kids shows! So whadja you do after that? Huh? Whadja do? I bet it was twice as cool as the asteroid!"

Danielle turned away from Jaike, murmuring, "I'd rather not talk about it…"

"Oh come on, I bet ya were fighting genies and kings and dragons with Danny! It musta been so amazing to fight ghosts like that!"

"I _said_, I didn't want to talk about it, okay?" Danielle said angrily, grating her teeth in frustration.

"But your adventures musta been so awesome! Just tell me-"

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!" Danielle yelled furiously, whirling on the cowering inventor and gripping the metal scrap tight in her hand. "Geez, are you deaf and stupid?! There are some things I'd prefer people not to know!"

Jaike tumbled of the bed in shock and bewilderment, but quickly recovered from the fall and scurried toward the door, not wanting to anger the enraged half ghost any further.

Before she reached the door, Jaike turned to Danielle with a look of regret in her eyes, "I-I'm sorry for prying. I'm really not good with talking to people. If you wanna stop being my friend, that's fine." Jaike said, reciting the words as though she had said them a hundred times.

With that, Jaike opened the bedroom door and walked into the hallway. Danielle merely sat stunned on the bedside, startled at her own outburst until she realized what Jaike had said to her.

"She called me a friend, and I shut her down," Danielle said quietly.

The halfa wasn't sure what to do next. Should she apologize to Jaike for the outburst? After all, she didn't know about Danielle's past. Then again, the sooner she left, the sooner she could find the portal, and the sooner she found the portal, the sooner she could sabotage it, leave Vaga and come home to Amity Park as an asset to Team Phantom.

Yes, leave Vaga…and leave the lonely inventor.

"No, no, Danielle, eyes on the prize," the halfa muttered to herself as a white band of light formed at her core. "You can't afford to sacrifice this mission because you slipped up…again."

Two rings of light enveloped her in an otherworldly glow, transforming her into her ghostly persona. The halfa quickly turned both intangible and invisible to avoid detection. Before she left, she flicked the scrap metal onto the junk table, then flew through the walls of the brick house, ready to begin her search.

Unbeknownst to her, however, Jaike was watching her transformation through the crack in the door. When Danielle left, the disheartened designer walked into the room and stood in front of the table where the halfa had thrown the scrap metal.

"I know I shouldn'ta been prying," Jaike said quietly, reaching for the metal that Danielle had been fiddling with. "I just hope I can make it up-YEEEEOW!"

A searing, burning sensation made Jaike wrench her hand away from the scrap. She stared at the metal accusingly, like a dog who just left an "accident" on the floor.

"You jerk," Jaike muttered, talking to the copper as though it were another human being. "I give you a nice home in my junk pile and this is how ya treat me. I should..."

Jaike trailed off as she saw a small arc of lightning travel across the surface of the scrap, which wouldn't have been so odd if not for the fact that the metal was never in contact with any electricity. No batteries, no wires, nothing.

Matter of fact, the only thing that the piece of metal had touched was...Danielle.

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Nighttime in Vaga was a sight to behold: thousands of stars glittered in the night sky, with not a cloud to be seen. A crescent moon shone above dwelt among the stars like a celestial deity; its light made the sands surrounding the town shimmer and sparkle, transforming the landscape into a golden sea. Below the lunar god, the twin mesas towered above Vaga, vaguely resembling a pair of enormous stone guardians.

A glowing figure sat at the head of the north guardian, too wrapped up in her own problems to notice the beautiful scenery around her.

"Come _on_, how hard can it be to find a portal into the afterlife in a town like this?" Dani moaned, flopping back onto the surface of the mesa. She had been flying around the desert town for nearly four hours searching high and low for the hidden portal. She had even turned invisible and flew through a few houses to try and locate it. Despite not finding the portal, she _had_ located the Box Ghost's cell, found a secret bunker, and learned the horrific kissing art of "tonsil hockey".

"Ugh, I never want to see that again. The _slurping_..."Dani hissed, shuddering involuntarily.

Shaking the painful image out of her head, the ghost sighed, pushed herself off of the plateau, and flew above the quiet town. It was nearly midnight, and all of the lights in all of the buildings were shut off. The scene was almost peaceful, nearly 300 feet above the surface of the Earth, and Danielle momentarily forgot her problems as she stared at the simple beauty of Vaga. In spite of its small size, the town was full of wonderful people, an amazing community, and...

...the sound of a Klaxon alarm?

Sure enough, she heard a faint rhythmic siren blaring from Vaga, just as a wisp of blue vapor rose from Dani's mouth. The sky turned a deep shade of red, and Danielle groaned in infuriation at the prospect of a ghost encounter.

"Seriously? A ghost? At _this _hour? You'd better be worth my time," Danielle hissed, scanning the terrain for any spectral activity, "because it's been a long day and I need a punching bag right about now."

"If that's what you want, then who am I to disappoint?"

Danielle whirled around to face a floating green figure garbed in a black shirt and pants, tall black boots, and a flowing grey cape. His silver hair was tied back into a ponytail, and pitch black sunglasses covered his eyes. Danny had mentioned this ghost in passing, but Danielle wasn't quite sure who he was.

"Excuse me; I don't believe that we've met formally. You are...?" Danielle asked, gesturing toward the ghost.

"Why, child, I am Technus, master of all technology, paragon of code and binary, and king of all things technical and electrical!" the slilver-haired ghost boasted, cackling in his supposed superiority.

Dani stared at Technus with an apathetic look in her eyes, crossing her arms and flatly stating, "Okay, Technus, why don't you cut the creds and tell me why you're here? I don't have all night."

The ghost chuckled, responding, "You see, ghost child, I have gained knowledge of a human weapon known as an Alutanium Shockhammer, which is capable of generating powerful electric shocks. I lost my electric staff due to an unfortunate robbery years ago, and this hammer sounds like an excellent replacement,"Technus said maniacally, rubbing his palms together in sinister glee. "Now all I need to know is where it could be located. Would you happen to know?"

Seeing as Technus wasn't going to rescue orphaned kittens with a death mallet, Dani responded, "Well, Technus, I've had a bit of a bad day, so instead of helping you find your death weapon, how about I beat the ectoplasm out of you instead?"

She flew back a few feet and readied a defensive flying stance, charging her balled up fists with spectral green energy

Technus began to laugh as swathes of blue binary code ran up his arms like streams of water. The code gathered in the palms of his hands and formed into two orbs of flashing blue light, binary numbers orbiting around the orbs.

"Ooh, I like your spunk, kid! Very well, then; face me!"

With that, the two figures raced toward each other in a battle only to be witnessed by the lunar god and Vaga's stone guardians.

At least, that's what Danielle hoped, anyway.

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**Just a few quick things before I wrap up here.**

**_Kid Icarus: Daybreak _is going to be an infrequently updated story regarding the multiplayer avatars in in Kid Icarus: Uprising's multiplayer modes. I figures that these guys don't get enough love, so I'm here to fill in the void. However, KI:D will not take precedence over _The Lost and The Found _series. I fully intend for KI:D to be a side project, while my Phantom stories will be my main focus.  
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**Secondly, this story is going to have a more serious tone than my first story. Does that mean it's going to be brutally horrific? Of course not, but it will have elements that may have a heavier impact. To those who think a more mature tone is reserved for a T rating, please watch Gargoyles. That is all.**

**Thanks for your time, and stick around for Chapter 2 of _150 Milliamps_!**


	2. Chapter 2: Minor Technus-calities

**Hello, peoples of the internet. Temporal Break here!**

**Today's announcements are...there are no announcements! That's right, I finally ran out of interesting things to say. Except for the chapter name. I'm sorry for those of you who hate puns. All hate can be directed to my PM box. **

**I'm also probably going to make some physicists cry.**

**Anyways, please enjoy Chapter 2 of _150 Milliamps!_**

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Chapter 2: Minor Technus-calities

Jaike sat at the edge of her bedroom window sill in a red brick house, twirling a sheet of copper between her fingers and wondering where the night had gone so wrong.

"I didn't mean to make Danielle angry like that, I really didn't," the blonde inventor mumbled miserably to herself. "It's just that, well, it's so cool having a real life hero, er, heroine in my house! Her past must have been so amazing: what were her adventures like, how long was she fighting with Danny, who did she meet and defeat? It's so…well…"

She breathed a heavy sigh, her momentary excitement fading away as she remembered why she was sitting on the window sill in the first place. Jaike knew that Danielle would be flying around town in search of the portal, and if the inventor got lucky, the ghost girl might accidentally turn visible, giving Jaike a chance to speak to her.

Just to make sure that she wouldn't appear to be a stuttering idiot when she found Danielle (assuming that she wasn't already), Jaike ran through a quick checklist of thing to say.

"Alright, first: apologize for the prying. Second: Ask for forgiveness. Third," she added, staring at the scrap of metal in her hand, "ask about her powers. I've never seen a human who could generate any electricity, much less enough to cause a first degree burn."

She glanced at her burned hand, curious as to how spectral energy could generate electricity then sighed, realizing that her best answers would probably come from the halfa herself. She began scanning the skies for a glowing figure, a green light, anything to identify her half-ghost friend.

Suddenly, she spotted a figure, well, more of a blot, wreathed in white light and floating above the town between the mesas. She squinted her eyes, trying to make out the figure above her; unfortunately, Jaike couldn't see who it was from her vantage point with eyes alone, 300 feet below the peak of the plateaus. In a flash, she remembered the goggles lying on the junk table' which doubled as makeshift binoculars in a pinch.

Knowing that Danielle could turn invisible at any moment, Jaike quickly swung her legs over the sill and into her room, leapt off the window sill, and snagged the goggles on the edge of the table. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, a familiar alarm went off just as the eccentric grabbed her welding goggles.

*AWOOGA! AWOOGA!*

"Oh, no…" Jaike moaned worryingly, slipping on the goggles and taking up her vantage point at the window. After adjusting the focus on the goggles, she saw the clear image of Danielle flying above Vaga with, sure enough, another ghost engaged in conversation with her. Despite the distance, she could clearly see that the conversation would not end in a peaceful resolution.

Suddenly, a brilliant green and blue light momentarily blinded Jaike, who was forced to cover the lens of her goggles to avoid the glare. In the split second that she looked away, however, she heard a muted booming sound above her. The worried inventor glanced up and was startled to see a translucent shockwave forming above the mesas…and a monochrome speck falling from the point of impact.

With that, Jaike felt something that she hadn't felt before: a sense of conviction.

"Alright, you jerk ghost," she hissed, walking toward her closet with a determined glint in her eye, "you may think you're tough, but no one hurts my friend and gets away with it!"

She brushed away the few miscellaneous articles left on her closet floor, revealing a small patch of loose floorboards. With a few quick yanks, the boards lay beside a small alcove set into the floor. Inside was a metal box nearly three feet in length and half a foot high.

"You mess with my buddy," she said, grunting as she lifted the box out of the indent in the floor, "you mess with Jaike."

* * *

Unfortunately, intervening eccentrics were the last people on Dani's mind. Gravity, on the other hand, was a much more pressing matter.

The explosion that resulted from the two ghosts colliding had left her reeling, which is generally not a safe position to be in three hundred feet above the surface of Earth. Unfortunately, gravity had realized this as well, and was soon pulling a tumbling Dani toward the unyielding earth below. She tried to keep her thoughts straight as the ground drew closer.

"_Okay Dani, think. You can't keep falling, or you'll be a puddle of green goo on pavement. But if you try to fly, there's a chance you'll splat into the Earth faster. What do you…oh. Duh. Blonde moment."_

Moments later, a translucent blue blur sped towards and through the cracked earth; mere seconds after that, Dani reappeared where she had fallen through the Earth. She brushed some dust off the sleeves of her costume, muttering, "Of course: intangibility. The Ghost Zone's gift to specters."

A cackling laugh drew the halfa's attention above her, where Technus stood with a sinister grin on his face and a shimmering lightning-blue shield covering his body.

"You know, I have seen a lot of die-hard members of the Phandom, but you are the first to actually try and one up him! I take it that your costume was completely your idea, right?" he said sarcastically, motioning toward Dani's own monochrome gear.

The hybrid clone decided not to dignify Technus with a response; instead, she launched a massive acid green ghost ray at her opponent. He merely grinned in amusement as the laser approached; moments later, the shot hit his shield and was shot back toward the startled halfa. In her confusion, she barely had enough time to turn intangible and avoid the laser, which exploded on the cliff behind her.

"HahahaHA! Violence will get you nowhere with my new Specter Defector Armor Version 9.9!" Technus cackled maliciously as she faded back into existence. "This shield utilizes my self-generated electricity to create a wall of electrons with quantum numbers similar to that of your ectoplasmic signature, which I obtained using a spectral spectrometer installed in my sunglasses. This application of Pauli's Exclusion Principle keeps-"

"I-I'm sorry. What?" Dani asked, confused at the jargon that Technus was spouting.

"-your electrons from colliding with my electrons," he continued, ignoring the ghost girl's bewilderment. "As such, your energy cannot penetrate this wall of similarly charged particles. Though I suppose that a ghost of your station could not possibly understand my intellectual genius; you must be stupid as well as weak."

At this, Dani tensed up as rage built in her system, "Did you just say…weak?" she hissed with a slight tremble in her voice.

Seeing the halfa enraged and bewildered made Technus smile; as much as he hated emotions, he knew that they could turn great men into sniveling children or unthinking brutes, and by the look on his opponent's face, he knew that he had struck a tender nerve. This would go swimmingly.

Dani stomped toward the smiling ghost and lit her hands up with a ghostly green flame so fierce it seemed to sear the air around it. She eventually stood in front of Technus, who continued grinning even as the flames consuming her hands went from a translucent green to a blinding white. She wound up for a crippling strike and venomously hissed,

"I. Am. Not. Weak."

She threw her fist into the ghost shield, channeling all of her energy into a singular point of impact. In an instant, the lightning-blue shield shattered in a flurry of sparks and binary code. Technus was thrown backwards and slammed into the south plateau before falling to the ground, leaving a Technus-shaped imprint on the rock face.

Dani stared at the crumpled form of Technus, exhausted from the blow but satisfied that he had been beaten without any trouble. That relief, however, quickly turned into anger as the glowing form slowly got to his feet with another lightning-blue shield covering his body.

"Oof, I take it back, child. You are not just stupid and weak," he said, now standing tall with crossed arms and teasing look on his face, "You are ignorant to boot. Do you not remember that I said that this shield is manifested using my energy? You could break it n times, assuming n is a positive integer, and I could still create n plus one more. Your odds of defeating me are slim to none."

Technus glanced at the halfa, feeling cocky as he watched the halfa drop to her knees and sob in defeat…except for the itty bitty minor fact that the halfa wasn't sobbing in defeat. She wasn't even on her knees. Instead, she just stood there trembling slightly with small drops of ectoplasm dripping from her left hand. Her teeth were clenched, her breath was heavy, and her eyes burned into Technus with a gaze rivaling that of Pariah.

For a moment, Technus gave into his emotions and stumbled backward, terrified of the ghost's death glare, then snapped out of it as he realized that he had this girl right where he wanted her. Enraged, insulted, and now weakened! She would be easier to take down than the Box Ghost on a federal holiday.

"Perhaps you wish to continue testing me." Technus said mockingly, reaching a hand out and curling his fingers toward himself. "Very well, then. I didn't have any plans for the night, so why don't I spend it taunting an ectopus like you?"

As was expected, Dani gave a pointless roar and charged at Technus for the second time that night. This time, he morphed into a cloud of binary code and allowed the girl to pass through his formless figure. At the moment she passed through, he transformed back and grabbed the girl by her neck. The ghost gave a sinster chuckle as he sent a large jolt of electricity through his arm and into the girl's spine.

Immediately, the girl went limp and he tossed her to the ground, hoping that she wasn't unconscious; not because he was worried for her safety, but because it was amusing to watch her struggle. It wasn't long before she got up again, looking even angrier than before. The fire surrounding her fists began to crackle, spark and hiss, as though lightning had collected in the palms of her hands.

Before Technus had time to register the change, the girl shot forward and slammed her fist into his gut. He doubled over and held his gut in pain, allowing Dani to launch an uppercut into his chin. An audible crack was heard as Technus stumbled backward. Not finished yet, she fired off what she supposed was a ghost ray; instead, a thick bolt of white lighting arced from her fingertips toward the ghost.

Technus dissolved into a binary cloud, allowing the bolt to travelthrough him and into the ground. When he regained his form, Dani was already readying another blow. This time, however, Technus countered the strike with his own fists, and the two met with a resounding crack. She pulled back and swung her right leg around, hoping to catch him off guard. Instead, he blocked the strike with his forearm and countered with a ghost ray aimed at her face. She ducked the blow while simultaneously sweeping her legs across the ground, tripping Technus.

As the two battled, neither one noticed what appeared to be a clay grenade roll between the two. That is, until a voice shouted out,

"Dani! Get down!"

Dani immediately saw the grenade and created a spherical ghost shield; Tehcnus on the other hand, put up an extra thick layer of ghost armor. The moment both of them shielded, the grenade exploded into ceramic shards and a white hot liquid. After the smoke cleared, Dani lowered her shield and was shocked to see a bright orange glass-like substance in the same shape as her shield.

Technus, on the other hand, was covered in the burning liquid; his shield hadn't been effective against the grenade at all. He began to peel the semi-solid glass off of his skin until a flying kick both removed the glass and pinned him to the side of the cliff. He fired off a ghost ray, sending Dani skidding back. Technus quickly advanced, but was stopped by a booming sound and a fast…something embedding itself into the nape of his neck.

He stopped advancing and yanked out the foreign object in his neck. Despite the current conflict, he was curious see what could have penetrated his ghost shield without breaking it. Technus brought the object in front of his gaze; it appeared to be a four-inch long nail, with about half of an inch of its length glazed in ectoplasm. _His_ ectoplasm.

A flash of white caught Technus's eye; he dodged as another lightning bolt traveled his was. Suddenly, it occurred to him that the same person who fired the nail must have tossed the grenade, too. A single look at Dani's now smug face cemented it; someone was helping the ghost girl.

As the two fought, he indiscreetly turned a dial on the sides of his sunglasses. His surroundings immediately flickered into shades of violet, orange, and red; thermal vision was a wonderful invention. A quick scan of his surrounding revealed several heat signatures, but two caught his eye: one was the ghost girl, and the other was a figure laying belly down on the roof of a two story building. It also appeared to be holding a weapon of some sort.

A click that he hadn't heard before rang out from the roof, and he dodged out of the way as a shining nail whizzed by. He ignored the halfa for a moment and flew up to the roof where a female human teenager dressed in a wite tank top and a cargo vest and pants lay on the roof. The human turned to face him, and he saw the girl wearing some form of night vision goggles.

The girl gasped and tried to run away, but before she could take three steps, Technus grabbed her by her shirt collar and turned both him and the girl invisible. As she struggled to escape his grasp, she dropped her firearm, which Technus immediately picked up. The gun was modded sniper rifle that had seen better days, but what it lacked in durability it made up for in uniqueness.

Where the barrel of the rifle once rested were two long rails that hummed with energy. The magazine had been altered to hold nails instead of bullets, and an electric motor was fitted onto the back. In essence, he was holding a rail gun sniper rifle. He had seen some incredible technology in his time, but this was ingenious. It also explained how the glass and nail had penetrated his shield: it stopped ectoplasmic charges, but not all objects. He'd have to get that fixed back in the Ghost Zone. In the meantime...

He phased back into the visible plain and yelled, "Hello, Phantom copycat! I have something here that you might want to see!"

Dani shot up to the rooftop with an ecto-charge ready, but gaped in horror as she saw Jaike struggling in the grasp of Technus.

"If you are anything like Danny, I would suspect that feel some sense of duty to protect your pathetic comrade here", he said, a spark of electricity lighting up his index finger. He also held Jaike out at his side to allow the halfa a better view. "So let me offer you a deal. If you tell me where the Alutanium Shockhammer is, I will not be forced to light your friend up like a Christmas tree."

"Hey, here's a better deal!" she shouted, gathering an orb of crackling energy in her palms. "How about I roast you like a marshmallow, save her, and we all go home happy? Three seconds to choose!"

Technus silently smiled as he saw the conviction in her eyes. She was serious. Either she didn't value the life of her friend, or she really didn't know how her new powers would work.

"Three…"

"Child, stop!" he shouted in what he hoped was a quasi-desperate voice. "If you shoot, you will strike-"

"Oops, I forgot. I'm bad at math. Zero!"

At that moment, something strange happened. Just as the halfa was about to shoot, Jaike noticed a small box attached to Technus's belt that read "Warning! Removal of this wireless grounding wire will result in loss of grounded state!"

"_Perfect,"_ Jaike thought as she kicked the box with her boots. It came loose and went flying off of the edge of the building.

That was all she had time to do before Dani released a thick white lightning bolt at the ghost. Technus, who had been sure that his grounding wire would keep him safe, was shocked to feel a searing pain travel across his body and make his undead muscles spasm. Despite the pain, he did have a small comfort knowing that the current would travel from his body into-

"JAIKE!" Dani shouted as noticed the girl's body spasming. She immediately stopped her strike, and both the ghost and Jaike came tumbling to the rooftop. The halfa flew to Jaike's side, not noticing Technus quietly and painfully get up and fly away behind her back, rail gun rifle in his hands.

"Come on, come ooonn…" Dani whispered roughly, trying to bring the blonde back to consciousness. Shaking, poking, even slapping wouldn't wake Jaike's twitching form. Lights began to turn on in the building behind her, alerting Dani to the fact that she wasn't alone in this town. Dani quickly scooped Jaike's body up and flew them both away from any attention. As they took off, Dani, quite close to tears, desperately whispered,

"Please, please get up. I can't have anyone dying on my hands again."

* * *

**Wait, what does Dani, mean, again? When has any death happened in the series? How did it happen? Is this some bad form of foreshadowing?**

**So this is it: my first attempt at some serious content in this series. Did you enjoy it! Did you hate it? Do you think it could it have been written better? I dunno, I can't read your minds. **

**This chapter gave me trouble for so long since I wasn't really sure of the direction I wanted this to go. But I eventually came out with something I really liked, and I hope you like it, too.**

**In the next chapter, the past three years of Dani's life will be revealed, so stick around and find out what happened.**


	3. Chapter 3: Introspection

**Hey guys, sorry for this chapter being so late. I was stuck with a serious case of writers block AND my flash drive was snapped when my computer fell on top of it. That flash drive had my only copy of both my notes and Chapter 3 on it. Always back up your files, kids; you don't want to end up like the Ghost Writer. Or me.**

**The good news is that, all throughout this impromptu hiatus, I've finished up my plans for the rest of 150 Milliamps! Now you can expect a chapter every week. If you like my writing, that's a good thing. If you hate my writing, stay away from the Phantom side of FanFiction on Mondays.**

**That's all, so enjoy Chapter 3.**

* * *

Chapter 3: Introspection

Danielle sat on the roof of Vaga's medical ward, a gray brick building with windows on all sides, as she watched the sun rise above the desert horizon. She was dressed in a blue t-shirt and red shorts with a red beanie resting beside her.

On any other day it would have been beautiful: brilliant shades of ruby and topaz would light up the sky as the sun's warmth would drive away the bitterly cold night: a welcome sight for the town's denizens who, for reference, live in the Mojave Desert.

Today, however, the sun's light mocked the mental fog clouding her thoughts; it's warmth taunted the cold, dead weight crushing her heart. It had only been a day, no, a night, since the battle with Technus had gone awry, and she still couldn't believe what she had done.

Danielle had nearly killed Jaike, who was recovering in the room beneath the ghost in critical condition.

Normally, she would try to justify her actions by blaming Jaike or Technus or any other number of factors, like she had with so many other incidents: maybe Jaike had gone in over her head and should have known better, or maybe Technus actually electrocuted Jaike before Danielle did.

When she tried to do that, however, some quiet voice spoke up; she wasn't sure if it was her voice, Danny's, or some disciplinary program that...he...had installed into her mind at conception. Whatever the case, it said that _she_ was the one who ought to take responsibility.

The voice was right.

That night, she was cocky and brash, assuming that whatever new powers she got would help her win the fight against Technus without any consequences.

Unfortunately, the consequences weren't just there, they were very, very grave: because of her short-sightedness, she had seriously injured a citizen who resided in the town that she was supposed to be scouting.

A citizen?

No, the closest person she had to a friend other than Danny.

In the past week and a half that Danielle had been in Vaga, from her back-to-back battles to Technus' confrontation, it seemed as though Jaike would do anything to help Danielle get back on her feet. Even after she had recovered, Jaike still did everything in her power to try and help her find the portal.

As the sun broke over the town, Danielle remembered the events from three days back. They meant nothing to her then, but meant everything now.

* * *

"No, you can't come."

"But why noooooot?" Jaike whined, stamping her foot in childlike disappointment. The two were standing in Jaike's room as Danielle prepared to scout out the town for the second time in as many days.

"Because," Danielle stated flatly, transforming into her spectral half, "you're a human who, unlike Andy, have no means of either defending yourself or helping me."

Jaike silently eyed her closet and fingered one of the pockets on her vest, quietly muttering, "As far as you know."

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" Jaike shouted, putting on a disarming grin and placing her hands behind her back; the picture of innocence.

Dani stared at the blond suspiciously before shaking her head, reasoning that Jaike was probably just happy about whatever new idea had popped into her head. She turned to face the window, ready to search the town a second time, only to be interrupted by a light tap on her back. Danielle sighed and, without facing her, asked Jaike, "What now?"

"Um, you'll have to turn around."

Slightly irritated, Dani turned to face Jaike only to have a large scroll shoved into her face. She shoved the paper out out of her face and stared into the blonde's green eyes with bewilderment.

"I want to give you two things," Jaike said, ignoring Dani's confusion as she unrolled the paper a safe distance away from Dani's face. She snatched the paper away from Jaike and stared at it's contents. "This looks like a map," she muttered.

"Uh huh!" Jaike said cheerily, sidling up next to Dani. "It's a map of Vaga, see? My house is right here and Andy's cube is up north!" she said pointing at two buildings marked with red X's. "This way you know where you've been and won't have to search in multiple places."

Without saying a word, Dani took the map and placed it on the desk next to her. "Okay, thanks. And the second-OOF!"

Dani's lungs were suddenly cut off from air as Jaike squeezed her tightly. The halfa stared at Jaike in bewilderment for the second time in as many minutes; Jaike paid no mind.

"I, ah, buh, wha…?" the halfa stuttered as her ectoplasm was cut off from her brain.

"Thank you. Thank you for protecting this town, helping Andy, and letting me take of you. All I had in this town before was my mom and Andy. Then you showed up and decided to help."

"To be fair. I just need. To find the portal. Then I'll go back. To Amity Park. If you don't. Choke me first." Dani said in short gasps.

Jaike quickly let go of the halfa, who took in a massive breath of air. "I know that," Jaike said while Dani stood gasping with her hands on her knees, "but the fact that you care enough to protect the residents here AND put up with me means that you care at least a little bit!"

"Um, yeah, sure. Whatever you say." Dani mumbled uneasily as she turned and phased through the window to begin another she flew into town, both invisible and intangible, Dani reached for the map, only to realize that she didn't have it on her person.

"Wait, where did it-oh, right. Left it on the table," Dani remembered, turning back to the red brick house. "I should-nah. I'll be fine. I'll come back and get it later."

* * *

She never did go back. For whatever reason, it slipped her mind until she brought Jaike to the medical ward: a building she only would have remembered because of the map.

Sighing, she stood up and pulled out a folded piece of crisp paper: Jaike's map. There, printed on it's surface, was the map of the town. After she had delivered Jaike to the medical ward, she flew back to the red-brick house and retrieved the map. marked with buildings, Xs, and...a messy handwritten note she hadn't seen before.

She looked closer at the scrawl, which read,

"Dear Danielle, thank you so much for the wonderful time you've given me in the past few days. We've known each other for such a short time but I know that you've done great things and will continue to do great things. Jaike Mander"

Danielle gave a wry smile at the innocent note.

"Good kid." Danielle whispered, tucking the map into her back pocket. "Baaaaad judge of character."

"And why is that?"

Danielle whirled around to face the man in black himself. Andy had snuck onto the roof without her noticing and now faced her with a stoic face and cold eyes, with only the faintest trace of spittle at the corner of the mouth betraying the rage he was feeling inside.

"Is there more to the story than I had thought before? Was I wrong to trust a specter to help me protect my town? Should I have killed you while you were unassuming and unaware?" Andy said in an emotionless tone, advancing toward her with an even and measured pace. Danielle slowly backed away from the stone-faced engineer; she had seen anger before, but it took special circumstance to produce tranquil fury.

Andy reached into his vest and pulled out a shimmering silver chrome pistol with bright green highlights running across its surface. Without saying a word, he pointed the muzzle at Danielle, still retaining a composed stance.

"This is a prototype Molecular Disruptor, specifically designed by Sang and Delphos to affect a ghost's molecular structure. A single shot will rip apart your atomic bonds into their pure elements, leaving nothing but nitrogen, carbon, and whatever other base elements ghosts are made from. Unless you give me a good excuse in the next sixty seconds, there will be no more Danielle."

Danielle instinctively fell into a defensive stance at the sight of the gun and prepared a ghost ray behind her back, saying, "Look, you don't have the details from last night. It's not my fault."

"Right, let's look at the facts, shall we?" Andy said, putting his index finger to the trigger. "You left the Mander household at around 8:10 pm; Jaike left approximately 50 minutes afterward, a time at which several citizens reported the sound of a large explosion. At 11:00 pm, one citizen reported a glowing figure carrying an unconscious figure dressed in cargo. Cut to 11:30 pm, and I am alerted by paramedics reporting a black haired girl in her late teens delivering a blonde haired girl who was suffering from ventricular fibrillation. They couldn't give me any other details about the black hiared girl because she fled. The. Scene.

"In addition, Sang and Delphos were called into the ward to investigate if any paranormal factors could have caused the injury. Sure enough, traces of ectoplasm could be found within the burn area. So tell me, which other black haired female with a blonde accomplice has mysterious supernatural ghost powers?"

The two stared and each other for a very long time, neither one giving the other inch: Danielle because she never wanted to back down from a fight, and Andy for the same reason. Eventually, however, Andy's stare wore down her resolve, and she carefully replied, "Alright, I did leave the house and Jaike followed. But I ran into a ghost named Technus who held Jaike hostage after she tried to help me fight him."

Andy's eyes never wavered, but he relaxed his grip on the pistol, asking, "So, you weren't the one who killed Jaike, then. This other ghost was responsible."

"Not quite, but I- wait, WHAT?!", Dani exclaimed, the ghost ray behind her back fizzling out.

Immediately, Andy's grip tightened, turning his knuckles white, and he advanced on the girl who was forced to the edge of the ward. "So it WAS you!" Andy hissed, beginning to lose his composure. "I knew shouldn't have trusted you; what good can come of a species with too much immortality and too little self control? Why would you- are you listening to me?!"

Danielle wasn't listening; as a matter of fact, everything around her her had faded into a white noise as she stood with a slack jaw and glazed eyes, mumbling, "This wasn't supposed to happen this couldn't happen I joined the team to get away from this not see it again what am I going to tell Danny oh Jaike I didn't mean to I didn't mean to I didn't mean to…"

"DANIELLE! What are you talking about?!" Andy yelled, dropping the gun and running towards her. He grabbed her shoulders and began shaking her, saying, "Snap out of it! What do you mean you didn't mean to?"

"I didn't mean to hurt her!" Danielle screamed, smacking Andy's hands away from her. She sat down on the concrete roof and harshly whispered, "But no matter what I do, I always end up hurting someone! I didn't mean to kill Vald's clone, I didn't mean to kill Tengo in Detroit, I didn't mean to join the Guys in White, and I didn't mean to electrocute Jaike!"

For a minute that seemed like an eternity, Danielle sat on the roof burying her head in her knees while Andy stared at her with a look of sympathy and anger. After a minute, Andy closed his eyes, breathed a heavy sigh, and walked over to the raven haired halfa.

"You know", he said with strained control, "I...understand that you have secrets, events of your past that you've probably not shared with anyone, but your lack of control, no doubt caused by these secrets, killed my apprentice and my friend."

Danielle looked up at Andy, who sat down next to her with a grim look on his face and continued, "Don't think I'm forgiving you; I still desperately want to kick your rear end out of this town for your crap."

Andy closed his eyes and sighed, then turned to face her with a wry smile. "But I get the feeling that Jaike would chew me out for that; she always assumed the best of people. So, as a compromise, I want to hear your life's story; maybe then I'll understand why you did what you did."

The girl said nothing as she rested her head on her knees, avoiding eye contact with the engineer. Her eyes were closed with a troubled expression on her face. After a few seconds, she took a shaky breath and opened her eyes, eyes that seemed to look back into another time.

"All right," Danielle finally whispered, "I'll tell you."

* * *

**So remember how I said you'd be hearing about Danielle's past in this chapter? Yeah, that was my bad. I needed some writing practice and a segway into the backstory; that practice turned into this chapter. The backstory will be told in the next chapter as will a few explanations for all the concepts I've been pulling out of my rear end. Metaphorically.**

**Also points if you found the _How The Grinch Stole Christmas _movie reference.**

**Tell me if you liked this chapter or tell me if you hated it, and I'll see you next Monday.**


	4. Chapter 4: Dani Phantom vs The World (1)

**So beginneth Danielle's saga of the past. No points for guessing what work I'm referencing in the title.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 4: Dani Phantom vs. The World: Part 1

Keep in mind that this is my first time telling my story, so some parts are bound to be incomplete. Bet that's hard to believe since I'm only five years old, but there's some parts of my life I never wanted to re-visit; guess I've got no choice now.

It started sometime in April, though at the time I didn't know that, seeing how it's somewhat hard to observe the sun and changes in temperature several meters underground the surface. As such, my first memory was that of a grey metallic room filled with tall cylinders; unfortunately, I could only observe the room through a sheet of glass. It only took a few moments to realize that the glass was secured onto a large pod.

I wasn't afraid though, far from it. Despite owning the body of a twelve-year old child, I still lacked the necessary cognitive functions and processes to realize that I was trapped. Side effects of a clone, I guess. To me, it was an exciting new experience and it wasn't all that bad; in fact, it was quite nice. The pod was heated and warm, the glass offered a nice, if not limited, view of my new home, and I was dressed in something tough and sturdy that didn't break as I pulled and tugged at it. In my mind, I was in as safe a place as I could imagine. Which doesn't say much as I had yet to imagine anything.

A quiet hum interrupted the peace of the room, and I quickly realized that the noise was coming from the inside of my pod. In the same moment, a few gusts of steam erupted outside the glass and before I could react, a cold gust of wind invaded the pod, leaving me shivering and blinded by the steam; however durable my suit was, it did nothing to ease the discomfort of the cold.

When the smoke cleared, a woman with red hair, purple irises, and a blue jumpsuit stood in front of me. She met my eyes with a blank stare before turning to the console next to my pod. I stared at the woman, who appeared to fizzle and flicker, and her body was translucent. I curiously watched her push buttons on the pod, a series of beeps and clicks sounding from the console.

Eventually, the noises came to a halt as the woman turned to me and began attaching wires to my temples. Rather than back away in fear, I instead stared at the figure, trying to figure out what she was doing. When she was finished, she turned to the console again and began to make noises that I couldn't understand. Were these noises important? I wanted to find out. I reached out for the woman to try and get her attention…

And my arm passed right through her. I was shocked, and I wish I could say that metaphorically.

An electric shock traveled through my mind as fragmented pictures and sounds appeared in my head; among them were an African with a beret, a black hired goth chick, a fat man in an orange jumpsuit, and…another black haired teenager dressed in a white t-shirt and jeans. I mean, I know Danny now, but then he was just a memory that stood out a little more.

Eventually, the foreign memories retreated into the back of my mind and I was left with my own thoughts and an aching headache.

"Ow, what was-"

I frantically looked around for the source of the voice; it was very loud, almost next to my ear. Suddenly, I realized that there were no other humans in the room.

"Wait, is that…me?"

"Wel, well, well, an unexpected development. Interesting."

A tall, greying man with a black suit emerged from the shadows of one of the pods and strode towards me. Even now, I wish that I had run away from that psychotic madman the moment I saw him. Instead, I gulped silently as he approached; this was a man to be feared.

He stopped just short of my pod and glared into my eyes, or just beyond them. Then, in a measured, even tone, he said:

"Subject 37. My name is Vladimir Masters, your guardian, caretaker, mentor and creator. What you have just experienced is a neural data transfer from a close…fffffffriend's son," he hissed, seemingly struggling to get the word friend out. "His name is Daniel Fenton. When you woke up, you had basic cognitive functions and memory; however, Daniel's mind was transferred to your own. As such-"

"Excuse me, Mr. Masters, sir." I hesitantly mumbled. His stern gaze turned irritated as I continued. "Why was I given Daniel's memories? Isn't that stealing? I'm sure he'd want them back."

His eyebrow arched upward in surprise for a brief moment before continuing on in a more irritated tone.

"Of course not; don't be absurd. I merely made a copy of his memories and transferred them to your brain. These memories allow for more complex thought processes and critical thinking. Now, I have other subjects that I must attend to, but tomorrow, we will begin your training. Until then, you are to remain here. Any questions?"

"Um, yes. Who are these other test subjects that you keep talking about? Do I know them?"

Vlad paused for a moment before answering, "These test subject are similar to you in genetics and structure; I suppose that you could call them your cousins."

"Do they have names? Do I have a name?"

He sighed, rubbing is temples in frustration as he hurriedly muttered. "Yes, yes, of course they have names, and your name is, um, D-Danielle. Yes, that sounds about right. Danielle is your name. Now please, I have much work to do."

Without another word, he turned and walked to the console, pressing a small green button. The pod slowly closed and I obediently stayed within. A sweet smell occupied the air inside the chamber; soon my head was swimming as I drifted into unconsciousness.

Before I lost consciousness, however, I heard a few words uttered outside the door.

_Subject 37's frontal lobe accepted the memory transfer with an unexpected increase in cognition; she not only speaks and reasons, but also thinks to question both her motives and mine, a trait that the other subjects have yet to master. While this behavior must be investigated further and kept in check, they do signify a major leap in the neural replication process, and 37 may soon be released to confront the boy…_

* * *

I eventually came to learn that both Vlad and I was a half-ghost, half-human hybrid, which Vlad seemed to refer to as halfas. I think it's a ridiculous name, but I really don't have any better ones.

Over the next month, I learned about about the outside world and its nuances- that is, when I wasn't traing with the other clones: cousins, as Vlad called them. There were only four that I knew of: a hulking grey giant with spiked bands strapped to his neck and wrists, a glowing green skeleton who covered himself with a bed sheet (for whatever reason), and a sickly viscous green ghost whose preferred form was a small shining ball of energy. The fourth I could only guess existed from Vlad's mumblings about a "perfect being".

While I trained with my cousins during the day, Vlad paid special attention to me during the evenings and nights. He set up specialized training courses designed to push me to the limit, and taught me mathematics, sciences, and other pieces of trivia. I'm fairly sure he was doing this to make sure I didn't stick out like a sore thumb.

I loved the attention lavished upon me, but I was always confused as to why I was the only one receiving it. As far as I could tell, my brothers were faster, stronger, and far more powerful than I could ever hope to be.

Unfortunately, whenever I asked him about his motives, he merely told me in a sickeningly sweet voice that I couldn't possibly understand his motives. He used with the same tone and the same answer whenever I asked him about the dozens of red-haired holograms roaming the lab or his hypothetical fourth son.

But one day, I finally got my answers while I was training privately with Vlad.

The training room usually housed either equipment or an obstacle course, but today it was empty.

"Now, then, 37, are you ready to begin your training?" the man asked, standing beside me.

"My name is Danielle," I blurted. Vlad glared at me with spite, and for a brief moment, I feared for my life.

Suddenly, he gave a small chuckle and ruffled my hair. "Of course it is, Danielle. How could I forget the name of my most wonderful daughter?"

You know how when you're a kid and you get your first taste of sugar, and you want more sugar, and you'll do anything to get more sugar? It was sort of like that for me, only instead of sugar, it was my first taste of compassion since I was conceived.

Had I known more about the psychopathic fruit loop, I would have booked it and left Vlad in the dust.

Instead, I looked up at the silver haired man and quietly whispered, "D-Do you mean it?"

"Of course, Danielle. You're strong and fierce, quite powerful, too. I had my doubts when you were created, but now I see that I was wrong. And to prove it…"

Vlad suddenly turned to face me and dropped into a defensive stance as a thick jet-black ring appeared at his core. It split across his middle and ran along his body, transforming him from multimillionaire Masters to the hybrid Plasmius.

"…you get to fight me."

I eagerly transformed into my ghostly persona and leapt at him with fists blazing. Unfortunately, by the time I reached Vlad, Vlad was gone. Suddenly, his cried out.

"Counter!"

A seemingly dismembered foot appeared in midar. I turned intangible as the leg passed through me; a quick volley of ectoblasts sent a now visible Plasmius skidding backwards. He raced towards me and fired a slow laser in my direction.

"Defend!"

I quickly ducked and generated a force field around my body. The blast ricocheted off of the shield and back toward Plasmius, who swiped it away with the palm of his hand. He continued to charge at me.

"Flee!"

I gathered my energy and teleported three feet away. Vlad quickly stopped and wound up for a hook.

"Strike!"

I ducked under the blow and countered with an uppercut to his chin; to my surprise, Vlad was launched backwards and fell hand on the ground. I worriedly looked at his disheveled figure until he muttered,

"Finish."

Rather than question his apparent suicide wish, I quickly generated a large sphere of spectral energy intending to destroy the man.

And that's when I felt it.

I didn't notice at first, but I soon noticed that I was losing feeling in my feet. I looked down at them, or rather, where they were. In their place were puddles of green goo, goo that was slowly traveling up my body.

I screamed and absorbed the energy bad into my body, and soon the goo was also siphoned back. For a few moments I just stood there, shell-shocked, until a voice whispered, "Hmm. An unfortunate development."

Vlad stood next to the defeated form of Vlad, whose limp form groaned in pain. I stared in confusion until the lifeless figure was hoisted from the ground and fused with the standing Vlad.

"You…you can make _copies_ of yourself?"

The man ignored my question but continued to walk towards me. With a snap of his fingers, another holographic red-haired woman appeared and approached me. When she reached me, she stooped down to my eye level. Her eyes began to glow white as a thin ribbon of light scanned my form. I sighed as the light began to fade; I had undergone several scans similar to this. I thought for sure that this test wouldn't be any different.

Oh, how wrong I was.

"Ectoplasmic structural integrity at 84%, sweetums."

Vlad let out a heavy sigh as he knelt down in front of me.

"This is what I was afraid of, Danielle," he sighed, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"What do you mean?" I timidly asked.

"Destabilization," he said, hanging his head. "So many of your cousins have succumbed to the genetic flaw, and from the looks of things, you might be next."

However, in the very next moment, he faced me with a small glimmer of hope on his face. "There may yet be a chance, though. Danielle, do you remember a black-haired adolescent with a ratty white t-shirt and grungy jeans?"

I gawked at Vlad for a moment before responding. "Um, yeah, but I'm not so sure about the ratty and grungy parts…"

"I believed that I mentioned his name at your conception. Do you remember the name Daniel? Of course you do. More importantly, however, is the fact that he is also a halfa, the prime source of cells _and_ your DNA donor. He could be the answer to your problem," Vlad said, standing up from his kneeling position.

"But Vlad," I whispered with wide eyes, "If he's the one who helped make me, he's got to know about my cousins, right? So he must know about their problems, right? So why won't he help us?"

Vlad opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it as a sinister grin crossed his face. Only later would I recognize the grin as the warped seed of a plan coming to fruition."Yes, that is an excellent question, Danielle. Why won't he help us?"

I tilted my head in in confusion, "Soooo…you don't know, then? Does that mean we're gonna ask him?"

"Of course I know why, idiot!" he snapped, raising his hands in frustration. "That was a rhetorical question!"

"Why ask the question if you knew already?", I continued to ask, half-joking and half serious.

"I-you-it-baaaaah! Look, Daniel is a selfish, ignorant, entitled monster who believes that he's _so_ much better than me, Vlad Plasmius, a man who trained for twenty years to perfect his ghost skills!" he roared, frantically pacing around the training room.

"Uhh…"

"And _now_!" he shouted, whirling on me in a rage, "Now he believes that he can incense me even more by withholding vital mid-morph DNA, preventing me from repairing the damage done to my failed experiment, my perfect son, and you!"

A fierce rage began to burn in my heart; how could this Danny person be so selfish as to withhold important information from my father?

"So what are we gonna do about it?" I asked, balling up my fists in anger.

In a moment his anger ceased, and he smiled amusedly at my anger. Looking back on it now, I think I saw his lip curled upward in a cruel grin.

"What are we going to do?" he chuckled. "Why, we're going to teach Daniel a lesson, and make sure that he realizes what a fool he's been!"

"Alright!" I yelled enthusiastically, fist pumping the air. "What does 'teaching him a lesson' involve?"

"I have a plan," Vlad whispered, leaning in close. As he relayed his plan, my eyes grew wide in a mixture of anticipation, joy, and fear.

"So, you want me to-"

"Yes."

"And I need to-"

"Yes."

"Without attracting any-"

"DANIELLE." He said roughly. "I have already sent out the first clone; this is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss."

Seeing the fear in my eyes, he knelt down and looked me in the eyes, saying, "You are the strongest and smartest clone I have at my disposal. I need you to do this for the sake of all the clones here. You are our last shot."

Somewhere in the back of that convoluted, grotesque, conniving piece of flesh he called a brain, I'm sure he was thinking, "_Sucker._"

* * *

"And you bought it?" Andy asked

"Oh yeah. I bought it hook, line, and sinker," Danielle said, wiping the sweat off of her brow. "Geez, it's getting hot out here; let's head somewhere cooler."

"Wait a minute." Andy muttered as the two got up from their sitting position. "You never told me what his plan was. What exactly did you do in Amity Park?"

"Well if you really want to know, watch the episode yourself; it's only about 22 minutes long. Besides I'm not quite finished yet," she replied, transforming into her ghostly half. "How does your house sound?"

"Hold on, I-WAUGH!"

Dani had grabbed onto Andy's wrist, and soon the two were flying off to the north side of town.

About twenty four minutes later (two for the trip, twenty two for the episode), the two were seated in a small workshop at a table which currently held a dismantled A-Core MasterSoft computer.

"So that's why you ran away from Vlad," the engineer contemplated, twirling a red wire in his fingers absent-mindedly. "But if that's the case, why did you run away from Danny, and who was this Tengo guy you blurted about earlier?"

At the mention of the name, Danielle's face fell as she miserably mumbled. "Well, I ran away from Danny because I didn't want to be a hassle, and Tengo's the guy who made me realized that the rest of the world wasn't as straightforward and clichéd as Amity Park."

* * *

**I'm gonna be straight here, this isn't my favorite chapter, but I figured I'd give my two cents on Danielle's origins. What I really want to cover, though, are the periods between Kindred Spirits and D-Stabilized, and from Phantom Planet till the events of 150 mA. They're a little dark, but then one man's midnight is another man's noon. Or some philosophical nonsense like that.**

**Anyways, I've begun to realize that I can't keep a consistent schedule. I sort of hate myself for writing that, because it means that I'm letting you guys down. Trust me, though, I want to write this story, and will continue to keep writing to the best of my ability.**

** See you in Chapter 5.**


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